Meredith Lake | |
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Born | 1980 Sydney, Australia |
Occupation | Author, historian |
Meredith Lake (born 1980) is an Australian author, historian of religion and broadcaster.
Lake grew up in Sydney in a devout Anglican household. [1] She has a PhD from the University of Sydney, exploring religious narratives about land in colonial Australia, with a 2008 thesis titled "'Such Spiritual Acres': Protestantism, the land and the colonisation of Australia 1788–1850." [2] [3]
Lake is an Honorary Associate of the Department of History at Sydney University. [2] Her 2012 essay on Christianity and colonialism won the Bruce Mansfield Prize for best article in the Journal of Religious History . [4] [5] Her 2013 book Faith in Action: HammondCare is a history of one of Australia's "largest but least known" Christian charities, [2] founded by Rev Robert Hammond whose relief centre in Sydney helped people including "Mr Eternity" Arthur Stace and politician John Hatton. [6]
Lake's 2018 book The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History, which looks at the impact of the Bible on Australia, [7] [8] [9] won the Australian History prize at the 2019 Prime Minister's Literary Awards [10] and the NSW Premier's History Awards, the Non-Fiction award at the 2020 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, and was the 2018 Australian Christian Book of the Year and the 2019 Council for the Humanities Arts and Social Sciences book of the year. [2] [11] [12] The judges of the Prime Minister's award said the book "presents, for the first time, a thorough examination of the broad cultural, political, and historical context that Christianity and the Bible have played in Australia since 1788" and called Lake's writing "lively, energetic and highly accessible." [10] [13]
Since January 2019, Lake has presented the ABC Radio National program "Soul Search" about faith and spirituality. [2] [11] She has also appeared on ABC TV and community radio stations [14] as well as guest-hosting the TV program Compass . [15] [16] In April 2021, she gave the annual May McLeod lecture at the United Theological College in Sydney. [15]
Lake is a Christian [11] and is married with children. [17] Her youngest child was born in 2018, around the same time she completed her book manuscript. [1]
The Bible Belt is a region of the Southern United States in which socially conservative Protestant Christianity plays a strong role in society and politics, and church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. The region contrasts with the religiously diverse Midwest and Great Lakes, and the Mormon corridor in Utah and southern Idaho.
The Diocese of Sydney is a diocese in Sydney, within the Province of New South Wales of the Anglican Church of Australia. The majority of the diocese is evangelical and low church in tradition.
A Christian mission is an organized effort to spread Christianity to new converts. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as educational or hospital work. Sometimes individuals are sent and are called missionaries. When groups are sent, they are often called mission teams and they do mission trips. There are a few different kinds of mission trips: short-term, long-term, relational and those that simply help people in need. Some people choose to dedicate their whole lives to mission. Missionaries preach the Christian faith, and provide humanitarian aid. Christian doctrines permit the provision of aid without requiring religious conversion. However, Christian missionaries are implicated in the genocide of indigenous peoples. Around 100,000 native people in California, U.S., or 1/3 of the native population, are said to have died due to missions.
St Andrew's Cathedral is a cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney in the Anglican Church of Australia. The cathedral is the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan of New South Wales. The position of Dean of Sydney is held by the Very Reverend Sandy Grant since 9 December 2021.
The history of Australia from 1788 to 1850 covers the early colonial period of Australia's history, from the arrival in 1788 of the First Fleet of British ships at Sydney, who established the penal colony, the scientific exploration of the continent and later, the establishment of other Australian colonies. European colonisation created a new dominant society in Australia in place of the pre-existing population of Aboriginal Australians.
Religion in Australia is diverse with Christianity being the most widely professed faith. Section 116 of the Constitution of Australia of 1901 prohibits the Commonwealth government from establishing a church or interfering with the freedom of religion. In an optional question on the 2016 Census, 52.2% of the Australian population declared some variety of Christianity, around 9% less than just five years prior. Historically the percentage was far higher; now, the religious landscape of Australia is changing and diversifying. According to the 2016 estimate, religious distribution is as follows: Protestant 23.1%, Roman Catholic 22.6%, other Christian 4.2%, Muslim 2.6%, Buddhist 2.4%, Orthodox 2.3%, Hindu 1.9%, other 1.3%, none 30.1%, unspecified 9.6%. In 2016, 30.1% of Australians stated "no religion" and a further 9.6% chose not to answer the question. Other faiths include Sikhs (0.5%) and Jews (0.4%).
The presence of Christianity in Australia began with the foundation of a British colony at New South Wales in 1788. Christianity remains the largest religion in Australia, though declining religiosity and diversifying immigration intakes of recent decades have seen the percentage of the population identifying as Christian in the national census decline from 96.1% at the time of the Federation of Australia in the 1901 census, to 52.1% in the 2016 census.
Lancelot Edward Threlkeld was an English missionary, primarily based in Australia. He was married twice and survived by sons and daughters from both marriages. His work in Australia did much to increase knowledge of Aboriginal languages, but he had little success with converting Aborigines to Christianity.
The Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture is a national Christian ecumenical centre, established in 1993, in Canberra, the national capital of Australia. It encourages dialogue and cooperation among Christian churches and between Christianity and other faiths, as well as exploring issues relating to reconciliation in Australia and the interface between Christian faith and Australian culture. The Centre is a research centre within Charles Sturt University, through a formal partnership established in 1998 between the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn and the University and is affiliated with United Theological College and St Mark's National Theological Centre.
Bible Society Australia is an Australian non-profit, non-denominational, Christian organisation. It is part of a worldwide network of Bible Societies. Bible Society Australia maintains that the Bible is a significant historic text which has deeply influenced society and culture and is still relevant today. The organisation is involved in translating, publishing, and distributing the Christian Bible, from print, to audio, to digital versions. Bible Society Australia is also involved in Bible advocacy, the publication of Bible reading materials, and the provision of literacy support, both in Australia and overseas.
John Dickson is an Australian historian of religion and media presenter.
Christianity is the most prevalent religion in the United States. Estimates suggest that between 65% to 75% of the US population is Christian. The majority are Protestant Christians and Roman Catholics and other minorities of Mormons, Orthodox and Jehovah's Witnesses. The Public Religion Research Institute's "2020 Census of American Religion", carried out between 2014 and 2020, showed that 70% of Americans identified as Christian during this seven-year interval. In a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, 65% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christians. They were 75% in 2015 70.6% in 2014, 78% in 2012, 81.6% in 2001, and 85% in 1990. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation. The United States has the largest Christian population in the world and, more specifically, the largest Protestant population in the world, with nearly 230 to 250 million Christians and, as of 2019, over 150 million people affiliated with Protestant churches, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations. The modern official motto of the United States of America, as established in a 1956 law signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is "In God We Trust". The phrase first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864.
The Sydney University Evangelical Union is a student-led Christian group that has operated at the University of Sydney since 1930. It is affiliated with the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES) and the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. The EU has throughout its history maintained a relationship with St Barnabas Anglican Church in Broadway and the Sydney Anglican culture in general whilst retaining a non-denominational base. The EU is also quite unique amongst its contemporary AFES affiliates in having a student-staff partnership, in contrast to other groups which has maintained a staff-run model.
Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Observed annually on 26 January, it marks the 1788 landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove and raising of the Union Flag by Arthur Phillip following days of exploration of Port Jackson in New South Wales. In present-day Australia, celebrations aim to reflect the diverse society and landscape of the nation and are marked by community and family events, reflections on Australian history, official community awards and citizenship ceremonies welcoming new members of the Australian community.
Catholic education in Australia refers to the education services provided by the Roman Catholic Church in Australia within the Australian education system. From 18th century foundations, the Catholic education system has grown to be the second biggest provider of school-based education in Australia, after government schools. The Catholic Church has established primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions in Australia. As of 2018, one in five Australian students attend Catholic schools. There are 1,755 Catholic schools in Australia with more than 777,000 students enrolled, employing almost 100,000 staff.
Robert John Banks is an Australian Christian thinker, writer and practitioner. He is a biblical scholar, practical theologian and social critic, as well as an innovative educator and church planter.
Julia Woodlands Baird is an Australian journalist, broadcaster and author. She contributes to The New York Times and The Sydney Morning Herald and is a regular host of The Drum, a news review on ABC. Her non-fiction work include a bestselling memoir and a biography on Queen Victoria.
Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? is a 2014 non-fiction book by Bruce Pascoe. It reexamines colonial accounts of Aboriginal people in Australia, and cites evidence of pre-colonial agriculture, engineering and building construction by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. A second edition, published under the title Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture was published in mid-2018, and a version of the book for younger readers, entitled Young Dark Emu: A Truer History, was published in 2019.
Graham Joseph Hill is an Australian theologian who is an Associate Professor of Global Christianity at the University of Divinity, and formerly principal of Stirling Theological College in Melbourne. He is the State Leader of Baptist Mission Australia. Hill's research focuses on World Christianity but he is also known for his work on biblical egalitarianism and women theologians of global Christianity. He has published in the areas of missiology, applied theology, and global and ecumenical approaches to missional ecclesiology.
Cristina Rocha is an Brazilian-Australian Professor of anthropology at Western Sydney University. She works at the intersection between globalisation, migration and religion. She has written on Buddhism, New Age spirituality and most recently on pentecostalism.